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Grakul
2006-02-05, 06:15 AM
Hi, All

I'm just in the beginnings of fleshing out my homebrew campaign world to start playing in March. Will basically be RAW, no custom races or classes, only those found in PHB and DMG (And MM 1, although no player characters out of the MM). All books will be 3.0, because I can't afford the 3.5 sourcebooks right now. ;) Spells and items from other books will be allowed on a case by case basis, and players will have to come up with a good way to procure these spells or items in my world.

So anyway, I never quite liked the pantheons as written in the RAW. After reading the story about the god Opatop in Funniest Gaming Moments Ever! (http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=gaming;action=display;num=1129762906 ;start=45), I came up with an idea:

There are only three Deities in my world - Doog, Levi (Because "Live" just sounds stupid), and Lartuen. Clerics & Paladins openly worship one of these three, while Druids worship nature, a manifestation of Lartuen. Druids don't actually believe in a god, and so don't realise, and deny profusely, that they are in fact worshipping a manifestation of Lartuen.

Of course, characters of other classes are free to worship any god they choose, but it (obviously) doesn't give them any special powers. I was thinking, though, of a system similar to FR, where if a character dies and doesn't have a patron, he cannot be raised from the dead. This may mean that druids can never be raised, only re-incarnated, or I may choose that druids are exempt from this rule. I haven't decided yet.

So anyway, I was thinking that Doog is Neutral Good, Although he supports rules and laws established for the cause of good, he does not get hung up on them. Levi is Lawful Evil, and in fact delights in causing his followers to come up with highly complex systems of rules and regulations, which he encourages them to interpret to the absolute letter, at all times twisting their interpretations to his own evil ends - he enjoys seeing people suffer for minor rules infractions.
Lartuen, as you might have imagined, is True Neutral. Neither Good nor Evil, Lawful or Chaotic, his absolute dogma is balance in all things. For Good to exist there must also be Evil, for one not to die of starvation, another must die, etc.

So what do you guys think? Do you like the idea? If so, what domains would fit these three well? What about favoured weapons? How would their avatars appear?

Any suggestions would be appreciated!!

Cheers
Grakul

Dhavaer
2006-02-05, 06:33 AM
Who do Chaotic Evil people sacrifice to? Demon Princes?
I think if I were doing this, I'd have a Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic god. Let the PCs have different religions.
Maybe change the names, though. Yours come off as a little gimmicky.

Grakul
2006-02-05, 06:42 AM
Who do Chaotic Evil people sacrifice to? Demon Princes?

Actually, that's not a bad idea! ;D You see, all evil in the world is actually a manifestation of Levi, and the Lawful Evil persona is actually only that of Levi's own avatar. He would appear to CE evil as being, well, CE. ;)
OR... perhaps Levi is only EVER LE, and he has a brother who is CE and doesn't understand the need for all these rules. What would his name be? Citoac? ::) OK, so THAT name would need to be changed, but lets call him Citoac for now. That doesn't change the fact that there are only three gods, perhaps, because Levi & Citoac are sort of like a "two in one" concept (Similar to Christianity).

The only name I would change would be Doog (And now Citoac), because his name is a little lame. I like Lartruen (pronounced Lar-true-en); sounds very mystical. And Levi (pronounced Leev-eye) is Lawful because he reminded me of Leviticus in the Bible.

I realise I forgot about Rangers when describing the worshippers. I'm thinking of Rangers as being kind of like the "missing link" between Druids and Clerics. Most worship Lartruen, but there are rare exceptions.
Also, I like the idea that Druids can never be raised, only re-incarnated. In fact, re-incarnation happens by default for all Druids when they die (And thus, Druid's souls never truly reach any real "end"). The only thing is that, by default, they have no memory of their former life. If they want to be raised with full knowledge of who they used to be, then a live druid needs to intercede by casting Re-incarnate.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Cheers

Grakul
2006-02-05, 07:10 AM
I just had another idea - scrap Citoac. There are still only three gods in my world - Neutral Good, True Neutral, and Lawful Evil. Chaotic characters, as in real life, fall into one of two categories:

They don't believe in any god whatsoever, and just spend their lives feeding their natural tendancies. If these natural tendancies are helping people, then they're Good, if they're hurting people they're Evil. If they're neither, they're Neutral.
They are fanatics who believe that their god is with them, and they are acting in the best interests of their god, but they actually don't really understand who their god is (Think of all the atrocities Christians perpetrated during the Crusades. If they really knew their God, none of that would have happened). I would see angels and demons as examples of these characters as well. A demon sees his god as Evil, and ignores the Lawful side.
With the second example, the domain selections of the three gods need to be pretty broad, so that someone worshipping Levi could pick domains that reflected his manner of worship (Ignoring domains that would reflect any kind of respect for order, and choosing domains that would embody chaos, while still being evil).

Qi_Chin
2006-02-05, 06:45 PM
Before actually setting domains, I would suggest writing down a list of the deities' portfolios. Just to get an idea of the concepts that the gods might emobdy.

Levi for instance could be something like:
Death, Evil, Trickery, Secrecy, Torment, Domination, Suffering, Pain, Calamities, War, Disease, Destruction, Power

As you can see, many of these either are or very closely resemble domains. This way, you also kill two birds with one stone: You have a list of plausible domains, and you've set down what areas the god will rule over.

Qi

Gralamin
2006-02-05, 06:57 PM
for a big list of portofolios see deites and demigods.

I don't see how a paladin could fit into your world, a paladin not being lawful good loses its powers. If you want three deties I suggest having a LG, N, and CE, though it isnt as intresting it does work better with D&D mechanics.

Dark Knight Renee
2006-02-05, 10:57 PM
I don't see how a paladin could fit into your world, a paladin not being lawful good loses its powers. If you want three deties I suggest having a LG, N, and CE, though it isnt as intresting it does work better with D&D mechanics.
Paladins can worship a NG or LN god with no problems, actually...

Without trumping the one step alignment rule, with NG, N, and LE gods, you can't have CE divine casters. You can, however, make Levi an exception to this rule, and have him grant spells to CE clerics.

Nocturne
2006-02-12, 02:54 PM
(I changed my nick, it's Grakul here) ;)

Actually, that thought occurred to me (The "One Step" rule), and kind of convinced me that the idea was not going to work.

I've scrapped it for now - will revisit it when I have some more experience. For now, I'm just going to use the RAW deities from the PHB, and perhaps add my own based on how the campaign story progresses, and on suggestions from my players. Somebody wants to create a new deity, I see no problem with that - just define him/her well, and go for it!! :)

Cheers
Nocturne

Hallavast
2006-02-12, 03:18 PM
.... So by your logic, no chaotic character could EVER be resurrected if they fit the two categories that you have placed for them?

I always try to think of characters as if they had human characteristics.... I would strongly suggest not trying to categorize everyone based on alignment and religeon, but thats just me. IMHO, yer just thinkin' too hard on it, me boy...

Qi_Chin
2006-02-14, 02:00 AM
Of course, it's your world, so you can of course scrap the one-step rule, and say that this and this alignment worship this and that deity.

Qi

Nocturne
2006-02-14, 10:47 AM
I could do that, Qi_Chin, but:

a. I don't fancy that I'm experienced enough to go messing with the assumptions of the rules, and

b. It would probably make me a hyppocrite for saying I wanted to play core stuff only. :)

Cheers
Nocturne

dbsousa
2006-02-14, 01:44 PM
Hi, All

All books will be 3.0, because I can't afford the 3.5 sourcebooks right now.

If money is your only issue, and you are only using SRD rules, then goto www.d20srd.org. You can run a game from this site without using a single book.

If you are running a three deity universe, you might look to various yin/yangs plus an interloper. IE, Good Evil, and Nature, or Law, Chaos, and Power.

If I were considering a three god system, I would use Father, Mother, and Child, have all of them be Good, and say that Evil characters get their divine spells from Demons or Devils instead of Gods...

Nocturne
2006-02-14, 01:57 PM
If I were considering a three god system, I would use Father, Mother, and Child, have all of them be Good, and say that Evil characters get their divine spells from Demons or Devils instead of Gods...

Now THAT'S not a bad idea!! Perhaps I'll introduce a culture into my world (That the PC's run accross later in the campaign - not one that any of them belong to) that worships this way. Thanks!!

Oh, and I've since discovered d20srd.org. It's pretty darn cool! There aren't that many things (That would affect a Level 1 party) in 3.0 that were changed in 3.5 anyway, barring the Ranger. So I can always use the 3.0 books and refer to the online srd on a case-by-case basis to see if anything's changed.

Severus
2006-02-14, 02:47 PM
I think building a consolidated pantheon is always a good way to give your campaign a special flavor.

I think the best way to start is to look at a couple of worldly examples.

A typical 3 diety pantheon might follow the hindu trinity model

Brahma the Creator

Vishnu the Preserver

Shiva the Destroyer

(google will net you plenty on them)

I'd avoid at first game constructs like alignment and ask "What do the people of this world rever and what do they fear?" These will be the gods and demons of their world.